Emergency Brake Installation in California

[davamor]

Hi Everyone,
Dave here. I'm building (and hope to someday be driving) my MK4 Roadster in California and am currently working on the emergency brake. The build manual has the emergency brake cables running underneath the rear 4" frame cross member before traveling to the brakes. I heard somewhere that the car will not pass inspection with the brake cables configured this way (running under the frame). However, if the cables are routed above the frame member they are too long and the handle mounting bracket interferes with the clevices because the cables travel downward to the clevices instead of upward to the clevices. Can anyone shed any light on whether the car will fail inspection if these cables pass beneath the frame and, if so, what alternative solutions are there to route the cables differently? Any advice on working through this would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Confused in San Diego

P.S. For the record, I did have the same issue many of you have written about in the forum about the difficulty getting the emergency brake handle to clear the aluminum on the transmission tunnel. I used a combination of cutting out some of the offending aluminum, shorter screws on the handle, elongating the grooves in the two mounting brackets, and some not so gentle massaging with a mallet. All that combined with some well-timed profanity seemed to do the trick.

[JohnK]

That's an oddly specific requirement that I've never heard of, and would frankly be surprised if it was real. Others experiences may be different but my brake and lamp inspector spent very little time inspecting my brakes. He didn't inspect the regular brakes or brake lines or master cylinders, let alone the parking brake. He never looked under the car. The extent of the parking brake inspection was that he asked me to set the brake and then verified that the car didn't roll (mind you, it was on flat ground). I had installed an E Stopp electric parking brake and he didn't look to see how it was installed. He spent most of his time inspecting all the various lights, making sure those all worked properly. All that said, there are plenty of common sense reasons why you would choose to not route parking brake cables under the frame, and plenty of solutions to that have been offered up on the forum.

[i.e.427]

There is no such vehicle code in California. As for the cables, if it bothers you running them under the frame, here is a recent video:
The Factory 5 handle sucks at applying the parking brake. We use a stock Ford handle and cables.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc-vcr15erc

Frank

[davamor]

John K...I agree that the requirement seems strange but I was cautious because I don't like to underestimate the ability of govt. entities to complicate matters.

i.e.427...thanks for the video and feedback on the vehicle code.

I may go to an E-stop system but it's nice to put my concerns about the inspection aside.

Hope you both have a great weekend!

Dave

[Rebostar]

Dave
Thanks for your post. Here in Oregon we dont have a saftey inspection requirement. That being said I did not want my E brake cables running under the 4" frame. Below are the pics of my installation. Here on the forum there are several guys who used a pulley to get arount the hokey FFR E brake cable routing.

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[davamor]

Thanks Rebostar,

Really like your e-brake setup. Makes me want to get creative and do something similar.

Thanks again.

Dave

P.S. Love the Cougar in your profile. My first car was a '68 Cougar XR7. That was a long time ago and I'm wishing these days that I had found a way to hold onto it all these years.

[lewma]

I heard somewhere that the car will not pass inspection with the brake cables configured this way (running under the frame).

Dave, I've had 2 builds inspected by the CHP in Oceanside ( with brake cables configured this way ) and they never mentioned anything. They had my MK4 up on the lift but did not put my coupe on the lift at all.

mark

[Rebostar]

Thanks Rebostar,

Really like your e-brake setup. Makes me want to get creative and do something similar.

Thanks again.

Dave

P.S. Love the Cougar in your profile. My first car was a '68 Cougar XR7. That was a long time ago and I'm wishing these days that I had found a way to hold onto it all these years.

Dave
BTW that Cougar has a 427 FE in it!!!!:cool: